Truth About Dragon LandOr Not
by Martial Arts Master
Summary: In this story, Emmy and Max discover a horrible secret about Dragon Land...or DO they? Please review!


Truth About Dragon Land...Or Not  
by Martial Arts Master  
All characters from Dragon Tales copyrighted by PBS and PBS Kids. Now, let me say some things before this fic starts. First of all, I know full well I'm probably going to get some bad reviews for this fic. After all, the Dragon Tales show IS meant for little kids. However, I really would appreciate it if any bad reviews were constructive criticisms on the content of my fic, and not flames just for writing a fic based on Dragon Tales. Also, I'd like to give a big "THANK YOU!" to another author named Serebii37 for giving me the courage to write this fic. Finally, although this fic will seem very slightly similar to the "Truman Show" movie, let me assure you that I developed the idea independantly, and I only realized the similarity to the movie AFTER Serebii37 replied to an e-mail I sent her and gave me to the courage to write this fic. Still, since "The Truman Show" movie was the first to use the basic premise of this fic, I'm going to give them credit it for it. After all, they DID come up with the idea. The fact that I came up with this story independantly, and the fact that the similarity is a mere coincidence, is NO excuse not to give the creators of the "The Truman Show" movie credit. That said, on with the fic!  
  
***  
  
It was morning.  
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there was not a cloud to be found.  
All this Emmy could tell by looking outside her bedroom window.  
It was going to be a great day...or so she thought.  
She and Max walked out of their rooms, expecting a great day of play.  
But they were surprised to see that their parents were packing up some of the objects in the house.  
"Mom? Dad? What's going on?" Emmy asked.  
"Yeah, what's with the packing?" Max asked.  
"I'm afraid we have to move, dear," their mother said.  
"Move?! But why?!" Emmy asked. She may only have been six, but she knew what "moving" meant in this context.  
If the family moved somewhere else, they'd have to leave the Dragon Scale behind!  
After all, Emmy and Max couldn't let their parents know about Dragon Land, and the Dragon Scale was so unusual that if their parents saw it, they might start asking questions.  
And Max, being only four, might blab the secret about the Dragon Scale.  
Except for the last part, Max looked like he was thinking the same thing.  
"Aw man...why do we have to move?" Max asked.  
Their parents sighed.  
"Because it's time you kids knew the truth," their father said.  
Emmy and Max looked at each other, confused.  
"The truth about what?" Max asked.  
"About Dragon Land," their parents said in unison.  
  
There was a pause...  
  
"HUH?!" the two children exclaimed.  
"How...how...did you know about that?" Emmy said, her voice in a whisper.  
"Because we were the ones who set the whole thing up," their mother said.  
"Whaddya mean?" Max asked.  
"Bring the Dragon Scale out," their father said.  
The two children brought the Dragon Scale to their parents, having not a _clue_ what was going on.  
Something told Emmy she wouldn't like the answer...  
  
"You see, this was just a part of an experiment," Emmy and Max's mother began. "Recently, an area was reserved as a sort of testing grounds."  
"Testing for what?" Emmy asked.  
"Well, in today's world, there are lots of problems," their father said. "The people running this 'test' thought that kids needed to learn good morals early, so they could grow up and save the world."  
"So our family was picked to participate in the test," their mother said. "We moved here, knowing that you children would find the Dragon Scale. That was when the plan was set in motion."  
"You see, Dragon Land is a fake," their father said. "This entire 'town' is actually built on flipping platforms. All one of the project coordinators had to do was flip a master switch, and every section of the town would completely flip over into the ground, revealing the different sections of 'Dragon Land'."  
Before Emmy and Max could speak up, their parents led them outside for a demonstration.  
Their father signalled to someone, and suddenly the whole town did exactly as had been said: entire sections "flipped" into the ground, revealing the sections of what Emmy and Max had thought was Dragon Land on the other side.  
  
Max couldn't believe this.  
If he hadn't seen this happen, he would have thought the Dragon Scale had transported him and his sister Emmy to Dragon Land as usual!  
But the truth-telling wasn't over, as a group of scientists walked over to them.  
"These are the project coordinators," Emmy and Max's mother explained. "They designed this project. If this project succeeded, which it did, many more children could be brought here to participate in the experiment."  
"You see, everything that happened in what _you_ thought was a completely different land was under our control," a scientist explained. "The 'dragons' were all actors wearing costumes."  
"You mean...even Ord?" Max asked, trembling. He really couldn't believe this. All of the adventures they'd had...were _fake_?! "I'm afraid so," Emmy and Max's father said. He signalled to someone.  
Ord, the big blue dragon who was Max's best friend, came out from behind a tree.  
"I'm sorry about this, little buddy," Ord said guiltily.  
Then, Ord appeared to be pulling off his head...only to reveal that it was a skintight mask, revealing an actor inside.  
The actor appeared to be male...but other than that, Max couldn't tell HOW old he was!  
"The actors were realistic because the costumes are skintight," Emmy and Max's mother explained. "So the faces and bodies could move realisticly."  
"But...what about Cassie?" Emmy asked. Max could tell his sister looked sad.  
"Sorry..." came a small, guilty-sounding voice from behind Emmy.  
Emmy jumped, whirling around to see Cassie, the small pink dragon who was Emmy's best friend.  
Cassie, too, turned out to be an actor in a costume, as demonstrated when the "Cassie mask" was pulled off.  
Actually, a more appropriate term was "actress". The actress was a little girl.  
How fitting, considering the part she played.  
"And Zak and Wheezie?" Max demanded.  
"Look above you," one of the scientists said.  
Max and Emmy looked up to see Zak and Wheezie, the two heads on a two-headed dragon body, sitting on a rooftop.  
"I hate to break it to you, but we're not real either," Zak said, hanging his head.  
"I _don't_ love having to do this..." Wheezie said.  
Then, the masks came off to reveal an actor and an actress cramped together in the same costume.  
"But...Quetzal was so big! _He_ couldn't have been fake!" Emmy said. Max was used to how smart his sister could be sometimes.  
In answer, a big..._thing__ came stumbling along, made entirely out of wires.  
"We used a hologram in Quetzal's case," a scientist said. "This humongous thing made of wires was controlled by someone else, and we overlayed a hologram over it to make it realistic."  
"What's a hologram?" Max asked.  
"Yeah, I'd like to know too," Emmy said. If it was going to turn out that they had been tricked all this time, at least they should know how.  
A machine rumbled from somewhere, displaying a holographic image of Quetzal over the thing made of wires.  
"But what about the voice?" Emmy asked.  
"There's a microphone hidden in the wires," Emmy and Max's mother explained. "An actor with a Spanish accent spoke into another microphone somewhere else, and the voice played out in the hidden microphone."  
"And the other dragons? They weren't real either?" Max asked.  
"All actors and actresses in costumes," a scientist said.  
"And everyone else in Dragon Land were also just people in costumes...except for the giants, who we made the same way we made Quetzal," another scientist said.  
"All of the 'magic' performed was in reality mechanical happenings disguised with sparkly special effects," Emmy and Max's father explained.  
  
Something didn't make sense to Emmy.  
"Wait a minute...there was this one time a 'copy cat' made Max act exactly like me," Emmy said. "How could that have been faked?"  
"I acted like you once? Ew, gross!" Max said, having not known what he was doing at the time of the aforementioned incident.  
"A couple of hypnotic suggestions planted while he was asleep," Emmy and Max's mother said.  
"But __why_?!" Emmy shouted. "Why did you trick us like this?!"  
"The test was to see whether we could instill good morals in children," one scientist said.  
"So we ran the test. First, we had to design your friends," a scientist said.  
"You see, the first step was help you two children develop empathy for others, so we created the 'others' you two would become friends with and develop empathy for," another scientist explained. "So we created little flaws your friends would have, including Ord's larger-than-normal appetite and cowardice, Cassie's shyness and lack of self-confidence, Zak's obsession with cleanliness and peace, and Wheezie's messiness and loudness."  
"The purpose of that was to make sure that when the both of you encountered others with those flaws, you could still be friends with them," Emmy and Max's father said.  
"We then had to design adventures you could have," a scientist said. "Each adventure was designed to instill another problem-solving skill in you, such as learning how to do a cartwheel, cheering someone up, being patient, etc."  
"Of course, there were several that were accidents, such as Max having to deal with Emmy being away a couple times," Emmy and Max's mother said.  
"We finally had to develop the mechanism for 'entering' this 'Dragon Land'," a scientist said. "We painted the Dragon Scale with glow-in-the-dark paint, used holograms to create the wallpaper-dragons that spun around you when you used it, and installed a device that, when set off, would produce a brilliant flash that would distract you while the town was changing to Dragon Land."  
"And you passed the test! You learned something from each and every one of the adventures that were designed!" Emmy and Max's mother said, smiling.  
"And we're very proud of you, for you've unwittingly pioneered a new step in teaching," their father said.  
  
Max had had enough.  
"No _way_!" Max said, stomping his foot. "You tricked us! You made me think everything was real! You made me think dragons were real! You made me think there really was magic! And now you're telling us it's all fake?"  
Emmy, too, was mad.  
"I don't think other children should have to go through with this!" Emmy shouted. "I don't think you should trick any more children! Can't you see they'll suffer once they find out that instead of going from Dragon Land to their own house and back, they've been going---_wait a minute_!"  
Emmy had a thunderstruck look on her face, looking like she'd just realized something.  
"If the town turned into Dragon Land by flipping over everything, shouldn't _our_ house have flipped over too?" Emmy asked.  
Before anyone could answer, Emmy answered her own question by saying, "Of course it would! But it didn't! We may not have been able to see with the flashes, but if our house had flipped over, we would have felt it! And if the house was the only one _not_ to flip over we should have appeared indoors every time, not outside!"  
Again, before anyone could answer, Emmy said, "So that doesn't make sense! The only way it would make sense is if this were---"  
  
Emmy suddenly awoke.  
Wait a minute..._awoke_?! From what?  
Suddenly Emmy sighed with relief. She had been dreaming! That horrible revelation was nothing more than a dream! She looked around.  
Apparently she was lying in a bed somewhere, but it wasn't her own bed.  
She could tell that not only by the look and feel of the bed, but she could also tell because Cassie, her best friend, was looking down at her, concerned.  
"Are you all right?" Cassie asked. "I was so worried!"  
"What happened?" Emmy asked. She had by now accepted that the "fake Dragon Land" revelation was nothing more than a dream, but she didn't know _why_ she had been dreaming.  
Cassie's face softened.  
"You don't remember, do you?" Cassie asked rhetorically.  
Emmy shook her head.  
"We were exploring when we ran into a nasty wizard," Cassie informed her. "He hit you with some kind of spell, and you fell asleep. I brought you to my home, and my 72 brothers and sisters kept telling me you were tossing and turning in your sleep, like maybe you were having a bad dream. You were asleep for _so_ long!"  
"I actually did have a nightmare," Emmy said. "But there were all these terms in my dream I didn't understand, like "hologram" and "instill" and stuff. I guess since I fell asleep because of a spell and not naturally, it makes sense."  
"Well, as long as you're all right," Cassie said. "Now come on! Our friends are waiting! We're gonna play tag!"  
After getting out of bed, Emmy and Cassie both dashed out of their home, laughing.  
  
***  
  
The End  
  
E-mail all questions and comments to bleifer@msn.com  



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